Early 2017 for QuarkX Presentation? (Update: Partner is ‘a Manufacturer’)

We’ve been here before, waiting for an E-Cat event. Since Andrea Rossi went public in 2011 there have been various events and reports that have been widely anticipated by people interested in the E-Cat, yet to date there has not really been the breakthrough that many observers have hoped for; namely, bulletproof evidence for his technology being commercially ready energy production technology which is superior in many ways to others currently availabchle in terms of efficiency, power density and cleanness.

However, I continue to live in hope that we will reach this point, although I am experienced enough now not to make firm predictions about when that will happen. From what I can gather, based on Rossi’s comments and answers to various questions, the situation is something like this:

Rossi is working with a partner who is supporting him in his research and development on the QuarkX. The partner has agreed to provide further support if he can show the QuarkX reaction is reliable enough to be used in commercial products. The partner has set Rossi a high bar — he needs to show to a level of 5 Sigma (99.9999 per cent probability) that his QuarkX reaction is not some kind of mistake or accident. Rossi is currently collecting data from one of his QuarkX reactors with the goal of hitting the 5 Sigma mark. Rossi has There are apparently millions of ‘events’ or data points that have been recorded in the operation of one of the QuarkXs under test, and these data points continued to be recorded. If Rossi and his team eventually hit the 5 Sigma point, then it will trigger a new investment from Rossi’s new partner, which will allow for the mass production of QuarkX reactors to begin. Initially these reactors will be used to build industrial plants which will be the first commercial QuarkX products. Rossi has said that he thought it would takes months to achieve the 5 Sigma goal, but hopes he can reach it by February 2017.

According to Rossi, the current plan is, if the 5 Sigma goal is reached, he will then conduct some kind of official presentation and demonstration of the QuarkX reactor. Rossi has declined to give many details about this presentation, except that he has mentioned it will include some kind of dummy reactor.

This seems to be the current plan. We know that there can certainly be delays, changes, disappointments and surprises in this story, so whether things come off this way, we’ll have to wait and see.

UPDATE:

I followed up with Andrea Rossi with some questions on this topic today. Here is the Q&A:

I’m curious how exactly do you prove you have achieved 5 sigma? Do you have to build a large number of units and check they all work? Isn’t 5 sigma something like one fail in 3.5 million?

sam

Gerard McEk
November 4, 2016 at 1:08 PM
Dear Andrea,
You must be awfully busy while being busy with the court case and trying to achieve QuarkX’s 5 Sigma, preparing for a new plant, theoretical work and organizing the 1 MW plant production.
And additionally replying to our questions. I hope you will find time to sleep.
Just a few simple questions:
1. Tests for achieving the QuarkX’s 5 sigma, do you do that all by yourself (hands on the QuarkX) or are there others to help you?
2. What did you decide to develop the Hotcat X: a. Coincidence, b. Better theoretical understanding,, c. Tests out of curiosity (just trying and see if it works)
3. Are you still working with professor Cook?
4. Do you think you are close to a full theoretical understanding?
5. Thank you for answering our questions. I hope victory is near!
Kind regards, Gerard

Did you notice the term “catalyst poisoning”. This is caused when a fermion isotope(Lithium 6) is mixed in with a boson isotope (lithium 7)

Did you also notice that Rossi did not answer Hank Mills request for info
November 2, 2016 at 10:13 PM

This is Rossi’s secret to getting his reaction going without meltdown. That is, the proper adjustment of the Lithium 6 to Lithium 7 ratio in the fuel. The proper adjustment is a Lithium 7 percentage above natural abundance. For example, the Lugano Li7 ratio was 94%. Lithium 6 acts as a moderator with too much LI6 in the fuel killing the reaction.

Hank Mills
November 2, 2016 at 10:13 PM
Dear Andrea,

1) Have you ever used an isotopically enriched form of LiAlH4 containing a larger than natural percentage of Li7?

2) Do you think Bose Einstein Condensates form anywhere in or on the nickel powder particles in an active E-Cat?

3) Would using elemental Li in a sealed reactor with the only source of hydrogen being LiAlH4 result in “competition” for hydrogen between the nickel and lithium atoms? For example, the lithium bonding with some percentage of the available hydrogen at temperatures below 680C to form lithium hydride (LiH).

4) Would using LiH in combination with LiAlH4 and nickel, instead of elemental lithium, prevent such a “competition” for hydrogen below the breakdown point of lithium hydride?

5) To produce the maximum hydrogen pressure inside of intergranular hydrogen bubbles during thermal shocking, should the hydrogen pressure external of the nickel particles (in the general atmosphere of the reactor) be lowered so as to increase the interior bubble pressure so it will be out of equilibrium with the environment? Basically, so that before rapid heating takes place, the pressure pushing in on the bubbles will already be less than the pressure inside the bubbles pushing outwards.

6) When simply using heat for triggering, how many re-invigorations can a typical nickel “charge” endure until the tensile strength of the nickel is overcome and the lattice containing these bubbles are damaged to the point excess heat degrades: tens, hundreds, or thousands?

7) In terms of consistent operation within desired parameters, which has proven to be reliable: the old style “hot cat” (Ni-LiAlH4) or the Quark?

8) For those who try to claim that the Rossi Effect doesn’t work, palladium-deuterium LENR is the only system with convincing evidence, and there is no proof that nickel-hydrogen systems can produce more than single digits watts per gram of fuel, do you roll on the ground laughing due to all the periods of self sustained operation you have seen or do you lower your face into your palm in disbelief of their ridiculous statements?

Thank you for your continued work and labor bringing the Rossi Effect to the commercial marketplace.

Sincerely,
Hank

Andrea Rossi
November 3, 2016 at 4:29 PM
Hank Mills:
I am very sorry, but I cannot answer to your questions in positive or in negative,because confidential, with exception of the #8, to which I can only answer that I never comment the work of the competitors.
Warm Regards,
A.R.

sam

Hank Mills
October 30, 2016 at 8:08 PM
Dear Andrea,

I understand now about how you previously mentioned the pressures in micro-cavities could reach those on the surface of White Dwarf stars. There are multiple scientific papers, some decades old, that describe absorbed hydrogen (even in an amorphous, initially defect free nickel structure) reaching high levels and forming “bubbles” that can reach pressures of a thousand atmospheres or more upon the cooling of the lattice (after being absorbed at high pressures and high temperatures). Then, once subjected to rapid heating, these bubbles of very high pressure hydrogen gas can then reach even HIGHER pressures — powerful enough to induce LENR — before they either migrate away or damage the lattice.

Brilliant!

Interestingly, these bubbles typically stay close to the surface of the metal (not deeper than 50 microns in the papers I’ve read). This would explain why LENR seems to be a SURFACE phenomenon! As the bubbles penetrate deeper into the lattice, they grow smaller and less numerous.

However, I think it helps if substance already has interior lattice defects or micro-voids, very close to the surface. One way of doing this is probably rapid heating. In another paper I’ve found, ultrasound irradiation of solid metal can produce small defects in the lattice.

Finally, after all these years of following your technology, things are truly coming together in my mind! It’s like a dozen Eureka moments hitting me all at once.

But, as always, there’s no easy shortcut. The reason why nickel is such an optimum metal in some ways is because it’s not the best at absorbing hydrogen. But this is a good thing, because we don’t want hydrogen escaping too quickly and the pressure dropping before LENR can be triggered. Also, the tensile strength of nickel is what allows the Rossi Effect to be triggered repeatedly over and over again. Of course, after many, many cycles of thermal shocking, these micro-voids might be damaged. The solution you came up with is electromagnetic stimulation to keep the hydrogen in these cavities stimulated at a decent pressure, but without damaging the lattice!

I was worried about the following answers of AR, because it seems to indicate that AR is still ‘inventing’ new materials, that are needed to achieve 5 Sigma:

Gerard McEk
October 29, 2016 at 9:23 AM
Dear Andrea,
You are trying to achieve 5 Sigma for the QuarkX.
1. Are you still developing this QuarkX
2. or have you chosen the most promising version and are you just testing?
3. Can you tell us what the most challenging aspect is of achieving the 5 Sigma for the QuarkX?
4. Do you expect that the 1MW e-cat plant under construction can be delivered this year to your customer?
5. Are there other plants under construction?
6. If 5 is yes, do these have the same power rating?
Thank you for answering our questions and good luck with everything!
Kind regards, Gerard

From you answer #3 to Gerard McEk below, is it correct to understand that you have not yet invented materials to achieve 5 sigma? Or have you solved this problem?

Thank you very much,

Frank Acland

Andrea Rossi
October 29, 2016 at 5:21 PM
Frank Acland:
I meant that we had to invent materials.
Problem resolved.
Warm Regards
A.R.

My conclusion is that making and testing QuarkX’s is a part of achieving 5 Sigma and that he continues developing even better ones.
No doubt 5 Sigma requires some time and a lot of data. Let us hope that Andrea will succeed in it.

sam

Hi Gerard
Do you or anyone else have any idea what would
be involved in making and testing
QuarkX’s.
Thanks
Sam

Gerard McEk

Hi Sam, sorry I cannot answer that question because Andrea is not very informative about what this 5 Sigma test would include. I am sure that reliability, safety and performance are part of it and to achieve 5 sigma for those aspects is already quite extensive. If also 5S for producibility and uniformity of single units and in clusters is demanded, then his task seems near to impossible to do before February. Additionally I have no idea how he can do a 5 sigma at all in such a short time frame.

sam

Gerard McEk
October 29, 2016 at 9:23 AM
Dear Andrea,
You are trying to achieve 5 Sigma for the QuarkX.
1. Are you still developing this QuarkX
2. or have you chosen the most promising version and are you just testing?
3. Can you tell us what the most challenging aspect is of achieving the 5 Sigma for the QuarkX?
4. Do you expect that the 1MW e-cat plant under construction can be delivered this year to your customer?
5. Are there other plants under construction?
6. If 5 is yes, do these have the same power rating?
Thank you for answering our questions and good luck with everything!
Kind regards, Gerard

Andrea Rossi
October 29, 2016 at 7:58 AM
JPR:
Right now ( 09.00 A.M. of October 29 ) the situation is good and stable.
Warm Regards,
A.R.

Stephen
October 29, 2016 at 5:18 AM
Dear Andrea Rossi,

I hope everything continues to go well with you and your team. I’m quite excited about the prospects of the QuarkX. It seems it opens up all kinds of possibilities. And I hope in it self will open up all kinds of new engineering breakthroughs.

I really wish you well with both the 1MW e-cat plants continued production and distribution where it can really help and also the E-Cat QuarkX progressing development.

I have a question if I may that I’m not sure if it has been asked before:

1. Do the QuarkX have storage life time constraints.

That is would it be possible to have say ten QuarkX’s in storage and use one at a time over 10 years.

I’m thinking this could be useful in remote or hard to reach locations. An obvious one is space applications or deeps sea but could also be in a remote light house or radio transponder location, or in a hazardous location such as monitoring equipment for a vulcano or inside sensitive or dangerous equipment where human interference is not desired in a regular basis.

If it is possible to store a QuarkX:

2. is there a theoretical upper life time for storage?
3. Is it robust to a wide range of storage conditions such as temperature or pressure (for example can it be kept unused in space applications until needed?
4. Or are particular storage environments required. Such as particular temperature range, inert environment,EM shielded environment?

If you prefer to answer these questions later I understand but if you can it would be interesting I think.

Best Regards
Stephen

Andrea Rossi
October 29, 2016 at 7:56 AM
Stephen:
Thank you for your kind notes.
1- there are not storage constraints, if the design is properly finalized to this use
2- I don’t think so
3- no
4- no
Warm Regards,
A.R.

Having a sense of Humour I am amused by your post, though that may not of been intended, however I am certain that you are mistaken, the COURT case will see to that. Besides which many of us here Love e- Cats and they will meow in public sooner than you think. Have a good day.

sam

Hello Clovis
A.R. reminds me of farmer
Henry Ford building and designing in his shop.
The big difference is farmer
Rossi studied C.F.
They even look a bit alike.
Sam

Rupert
October 27, 2016 at 1:40 AM
Dear Andrea Rossi:
Congratulations for the solid report of the ERV. Great achievement, a page of history.
Rupert

Andrea Rossi
October 27, 2016 at 11:34 AM
Rupert:
I cannot comment, but where did you find the report? it has not been yet deposited in Court and is supposed to be still confidential. I am receiving all these comments about it and I do not understand what is going on!
Warm Regards
A.R.

sam

Robert Dorr
October 28, 2016 at 2:01 PM
Andrea,

I think the report that Rupert was referring to was the court document that was released regarding the “Plant Test Plan” of Fabio Penon. This is just a guess.

Keep up your great work.

Sincerely,

Robert Dorr

Andrea Rossi
October 28, 2016 at 2:18 PM
Robert Dorr:
Yes, I too discovered you are right. Anyway, my Attorneys strongly demanded to me to ignore any provocation on the matter and never, for any reason, talk in the blogs of issues that have to be discussed in Court. I will comply.
Warm Regards,
A.R.

sam

Gennady
October 27, 2016 at 12:51 PM
Dear Andrea,

Would like to ask you couple questions about a domestic unit.

1. Assuming the domestic unit of 10 kW, will it require 500 QuarkXs?
2. If this is the case, how large will the domestic unit be that also includes a control system and an engine (Sterling?) to convert heat to electricity?
3. How difficult will it be to recharge 500 Quark X every 6 to 12 months?
4. And a separate question on your current QuarkXs contenders that you are testing. What is the COP of the top contender?
5. Also, based on the comment you made couple days ago regarding the cost per kW to be under $100. Do you expect a domestic unit of 10 kW cost under $1000?

The only equivalent I can see to this testing would be testing something like a spark plug. Since I don’t know that much about internal combustion engines don’t be too harsh on me. Say a spark plug is guaranteed to spark 3,499,999 out of 3.5M. Then you set up a test whereby the test is considered a success if the plug sparks and the engine produces power above a certain level.
Both conditions have to be met. If the plug fails to spark it’s a failure. You run this test as fast as you can, 100s if not 1000s of times a second. Even if you get a successful outcome i.e. no failure for the duration of the test, you still have to manufacture and test thousands of spark plugs(made to exactly the same specification) in order to have a product ready for the market. One swallow doesn’t make a Summer, as they say.

Thomas Kaminski

I could see a test where the system is made to cycle between two setpoints, say a high temperature and a lower temperature. A “test” would be that the system attained a stable temperature (within some limit) when commanded to the high or low setpoint. Depending on the time constants of the system with the smaller quark, this could be done fairly rapidly. My guess is you could transition within seconds if the time constants were short enough.

An alternate test would be to change the system while maintaining a fixed setpoint. For example, you could change the “load” on the system by introducing a cold fluid (maybe air?) and see that the system controller attains the temperature of the setpoint.

LION

I could see a test where the system is made to cycle between two setpoints, say a high temperature and a lower temperature.–Thomas, you might find this interesting-

Svein Henrik
October 25, 2016 at 11:55 AM
Dear Andrea.
It seems that the power of the QuarkX easily Was reduced from 100W to 20W.
1) How was this done?
2) May you easily change the power between 100 and 20W?
3) May a 1MW heatplant of 50 000 QuarkX each with a power of 25W, be run with a output of 1MW?
4) With 20% “dead” QuarkXs, will the plant still be able to produce 1MWh/h?
5) If yes, is 5 Sigma for the plant, then maintained?
By the way, You are not in haste. Use the time needed for a “5 Sigma success”.
Regards: Svein Henrik

Andrea Rossi
October 25, 2016 at 2:52 PM
Svein Henrik:
1- making it smaller
2- see 1
3- a 1 MW rated plant composed by 50,000 modules with a rating of 25 W each can generate an energy of 1 MWh/h
4- yes
5- the Sigma 5 issue is related to experimental prototypes.
Warm Regards,
A.R.

Frank Acland
October 25, 2016 at 12:04 PM
Dear Andrea,

Trying to get a better picture of the 5 Sigma testing, may I ask:

1) Is the testing related to product reliability?
2) Is each ‘event’ you are measuring some kind of activation of the QuarkX
3) Is your partner a manufacturer?

How is Rossi or manufacturing partner or whoever he is going to give a sigma x product to — going to sell one without a demonstration
Is he going to demonstrate individually to all his prospective clients ?
Any new product no matter how good takes a long time to market
I find it hard that with patent cover he would not demonstrate to the public and start to generate interest
All the other players have made some sort of public demonstration

Having said that lets assume that the 1 MW plant was successful and Rossi and IH were still the best friends they were going great guns would we now have had a 1 MW public demo – I am sure IH would have shouted at the top of their voices about the successful LENR product they have

Proof is in the pudding Mr Rossi — when are you going to stop developing your product and produce it

Albert D. Kallal

Why would Rossi win the Nobel Prize anymore then Brillium who has verified and independent tests working LENR devices?

So you mean the COP determines if one gets the Nobel Prize? I don’t think so! So one has a COP of 5 and the other a COP of 3, and thus the 5 guy wins?

There are a number of companies that have well tested and shown working LENR devices. I don’t think this in anyway will give such companies some free pass to a Nobel Prize.

The “first” flight of an airplane in regards to LENR has metaphorically occurred. Better working LENR devices really will only have “more” merit in the marketplace, not that one has a working LENR device. That ship has long sailed.

Regards,
Albert D. Kallal
Edmonton, Alberta Canada

BillH

Only if the underlying science suggests they all work on the same principle. It’s possible but unlikely that there is more than one fundamental process going on. In which case there is scope for several Nobel Prizes over the coming years. In this case I think AR would win as the early discovery of the effect could be traced back to Rossi.

Albert D. Kallal

Maybe the nickel based units can be attributed to Rossi???

However, I am not even sure Rossi was the first to show nickel based LENR.

And unless the ecat works different then say P&F’s device, or say the working nanor devices students received from the cold fusion 101 course at MIT, then I don’t think Rossi is in much of any position to claim discovery, or even being the first in any area regarding LENR.

As others and Rossi has stated, getting to market first is where the real prize exists. It kind of like apple and the iPhone. Android made great gains, but Blackberry and Microsoft phones are really struggling in that marketplace. And their struggles are not due to lack of a good products on their part, but simply that Apple and Android (mostly Samsung) have first market mover advantage.

Microsoft while a small company compared to most tech giants has first mover advantage on the desktop, but not in areas like the web or smartphones.

First mover advantage in LENR is a huge issue. Whoever gets to market will obtain and win huge advantages over other players.

To me, the reason why Brillion not taken off is their COP of 3-4 is not enough to shake up the energy market – much larger COP’s are required. So “most” LENR players seem stuck on a low COP.

If Rossi’s device has high COP’s, and he gets to market first, the advantages are enormous.

Albert D. Kallal

Edmonton, Alberta Canada

psi2u2

I think he was not, although I’m not sure who was, but perhaps Focardi or Levi?

MasterBlaster7

Scientific 5 sigma is 99.99994 part failure 0.6 per 1 million

Scientific 6 sigma is 99.9999998 part failure 0.002 per 1 million

Manufacturing 5 sigma is 99.977 part failure 233.0 per 1 million

Manufacturing 6 sigma is 99.99966 part failure 3.4 per 1 million

So Frank, can we get a clarification on exactly what 5 sigma Rossi is using? because 233 v. 0.6 is kinda a lot.

Just ask what is the percentage calculation for 5 sigma and/or what is the part failure per one million for 5 sigma.

TVulgaris

This is not exactly the right question, as clearly he (Rossi) hasn’t manufactured 4348 (minimum) of the units to get the first failure- he MIGHT have made the several hundred to get to 4 sigma (he had said elsewhere in response to someone’s comment)-

but it’s good to point out the different standards, because Rossi could be simply using an error rate in tests (rather than defective or failed part rate) to meet the lower standard- and as long as the partner (a manufacturer) is satisfied with that as it’s a familiar meter (I refuse to use “metric” incorrectly anymore), there’s no problem.

MasterBlaster7

Hmm. Well Rossi did just say that the 5 sigma was for experimental prototypes. So, maybe it is Scientific after all…

But, if this is 5 sigma scientific for prototypes…and the warm cat is not subject to the 5 sigma (that we know of)….could the 5 sigma be an effect different from the warm cat rather than complete LENR from the ground up. In other words that 5 sigma is to prove that the quarkX is distinct from the warm cat?

Bernie Koppenhofer

Dr. Rossi: Who will be the judge on whether you have reached Sigma 5. Thanks again for answering our questions.

Andrea Rossi
October 25, 2016 at 7:00 AM
Bernie Koppenhofer:
I will be. And I will be a very serious one, since all my money will be invested in the industrialization.
Warm Regards,
A.R.

Bernie Koppenhofer

How can this be a partner requirement and Rossi decides if he has reached the requirement?

Brokeeper

Perhaps if the partner knows AR is putting all his eggs in this basket his five sigma verification would be good enough.

BillH

As long as it’s not in a report signed off on by Mr Penon.

Albert D. Kallal

Where is anything that suggests some requirement by the industrial partner? I not read anything that suggests this.

Frank Acland

Hi Albert, see AR’s response to question 2 below.

Frank Acland
October 19, 2016 at 4:05 PM
Dear Andrea,

Based on your comments here recently I am trying to get a clearer picture of what is going on at Leonardo Corp. currently, and what might be going on in the future.

1. You mention that your goal is to reach 5 sigma. Is this the focus of your work at the moment?
2. Is 5 sigma a goal your partner has a requirement for, before a new level of support is provided?
3. The demonstration/presentation you talk about: Will this only happen if 5 sigma is reached?
4. Do you think reaching 5 sigma will trigger mass production of the QuarkX reactors?
5. Is 5 sigma connected also with the low temperature E-Cat plants?

It is hard to tell the context of “partner” in that answer. Is this a requirement of some partner working with Rossi, or a requirement of some industrial partner?

I will concede it means industrial, since the term “support” was included in the question.

I think we all eager await a demo of the device.

Regards,
Albert D. Kallal
Edmonton, Alberta Canada

Bernie Koppenhofer

Rossi has said it is a requirement of his partner.

BillH

This hints at a disbelief in his own work, not a good sign after so many years.

Bernie Koppenhofer

Not sure what kind of games he is playing. I still believe he is a sincere and very able scientist. He has been roughed up by some unscrupulous individuals in is life, I think that is part of what we are seeing, a reaction to problems in his past. He is very untrusting maybe with good reason.

Gerard McEk

Rossi wants money, not fame. He is an industrialist, not a scientist. For him counts IP and patents, the rest will follow automatically. The question is what he will do with the money.

BillH

Nah, Rossi sees himself as a latter-day Leonardo Da Vinci, hence the name of his company.

psi2u2

Its not an unreasonable aspiration for anyone of some talent and experience in a field to look to Da Vinci as a role model; what would we prefer, Michelangelo?

f sedei

I wish Andrea the best. But, this sounds eerily like the IH deal languishing in the court.

BillH

I’m not understanding this at all. Why would AR again tie himself to one partner that has unrealistic expectations which lead to delay and disappointment? Perhaps he has very little left of the $10M that he can use to progress this fabulous new project on his own? All this talk of 5-Sigma would seem to imply that 4-Sigma, 3-Sigma has already been achieved? Many projects go through to production with failure rates greater than .1%, as long as safety is not an issue, why not?
This is all starting to look like an endless cycles of development, discarding of equipment that supposedly works, and new projects that always require more work…

Ged

Recall he wants to do 50k Quarks at 20 watt to make a 1 MW plant. That is a lot of individual reactors, so they would need a high sigma threshold for the QA to reliably achieve this and make lots of working 1 MW quark plants.

Also, the partner now, unlike IH, sounds to be a manufacturer, hence all this talk about sigma and industrialization and the factory he bid on in Sweden. IH are venture capitalists, so this is the next step past them. VCs and manufacturers have different priorities and perspectives.

We’ll see though.

BillH

Simple solution….a few spare Quarks.

Ged

Expensive though. I bet there would have to be a few, but Rossi told Pekka he is aiming for individual quality rather than heavy redundancy, as redundancy does not scale economically (he is correct on that point). Really depends on the reality of the product and its usage scenarios and the tolerance to failure in those scenarios.

BillH

With the old 1MW plant priced at $1.5M and the Quark version containing 50K modules I’d estimate a production cost for an individual QuarkX between $10-25 per unit. let’s say a plant can run at least 1 year without refuelling with a failure rate of 0.1% i.e. 50 modules fail during the year. Then the cost to replace those modules would be trivial in terms of the running costs of the whole plant. If they are already on standby how easy would it be to switch them in or plug in new modules, as you would plug in a fuse.

Ged

50 modules in a year is high, but as I said, I am sure there is some redundancy; but think of the waste if you make the much higher redundancy to cover full power for 20 years at that failure rate, while churning out millions of Quark units (remember, redundancy doesn’t scale economically, that is the trade off). Or the waste needed in redundance at those failure rates if you want to scale up the plant (or multiple coordinated plants) to much more than 1 MW; say multi gigswatts like other powerplants. Not such a pretty outlook for cost on that requirement of redundancy; a gigawatt installation would cost around $1,000,000 in extra redundant Quarks per year in your example.

We are also making the assumption you can replace them like fuses and that they won’t be tied into banks or some other module construction, and ignoring any support equipment changes that may be required, which would drive up the cost of that redundancy.

Albert D. Kallal

Who says or hints Rossi is tied to some partner?

I think the term partner has to be taken with a grain of salt.

Rossi has MANY times used the term partner.

I mean, you can partner with a manufacture to supply you with some washers – that’s a industrial partnership.

In the past, Rossi has often used the term partnership, and then readers misunderstand the term.

So any industrial suppler that supplies say O-rings to Rossi likely has singed some deal for delivery of such O-rings. At that point it is reasonable and truthful to state that Rossi
has an industrial partner.

The term industrial partner does NOT in ANY way suggest that Rossi is tied to such an industrial partner in terms of manufacturing the device or sharing IP rights.

So Rossi signing a deal to purchase some screws from an industrial partner means Rossi has an industrial partner.

Without additional details of such industrial partners, you cannot conclude much from such statements.

Regards
Albert D. Kallal
Edmonton, Alberta Canada

cashmemorz

Similar to what I see as “partner”. I read somewhere in these blogs that AR is getting together with a robotics manufacturer. To make this a partnership the robotics people are not investors as such but hard nosed business people. Based on this the partner would agree to make the robotic lines for making Quarks X only if the they can design such lines to make a successful product. Therein the need for sigma 5. Rossi has to make completely sure that what the robotic lines will be putting together is the final or at least a successful version of Quark x as far as customers are concerned. When the manufacturing system has been designed and starts to be put together there will be no more leeway for any product changes. This point must be in the contract between the two.

What this all implies is that the sigma 5 applies to the details of the Quark X. This is Rossi’s responsibility in the partnership. Once that is in hand then the manufacturing partner takes over on their part re the robotic manufacturing lines.

Albert D. Kallal

No, you can’t conclude anything with the given information so far.
Rossi may well be moving towards working with a production line – but nothing so far suggests Rossi reached that point. So sure, Rossi has stated he will work with some automated production company, but the current terms and statements suggest nothing in that context at all.
So such goals of Rossi has zero to do with stating Rossi has an industrial partner.

So nothing here so far has suggested anything in regards to manufacturing or an “industrializing” partner.

I have no doubt Rossi has industrial partners to supply things say like a wood screw. Such an industrial partnership to supply a wood screw does not in ANY way suggest that such partners are involved in the IP rights or design stage, or that industrial partner has anything to do with R&D or testing.

The instant any deal is signed by any supplier is the INSTANT that Rossi can claim he has an industrial partner – you cannot conclude ANY thing more or less until additional details are given. There is zero evidence that “sigma” testing or some such is or has been used in the context of an industrial partner.

Regards,
Albert D. Kallal
Edmonton, Alberta Canada

cashmemorz

Yes,the IP would be a sticking point for Rossi. Anyone making the Quarks would have to know all of the ins and outs of the device in order to be able to produce a fully working commercial item in large quantities. Rossi seems to be rather paranoid about anyone outside his closest circle of friends knowing any more than needed. Will Rossi use what he learned with his involvement with IH to make an airtight contract and NDA with whoever manufactures the Quark? One can carry on in this vein of protecting IP up to a point. When it come time to make the thing others will eventually need to know all. I can’t see Rossi putting the secret sauce int each individual Quark X in the manufacturing line.

Do firms like Coca-Cola keep the ingredients away from eyes of the farmed out bottling plants? Could Rossi put together large batches of the final ingredient in a separate plant on his own, then send out part batches to each manufacturing plant? Even this would get rather onerous after a few months. He will have to let the cat out of the bag for someone eventually.

BillH

I inferred his meaning of partner from context. Since he never mentioned sleeping with his partner I assumed it wasn’t his wife. Since it is a partner that can dictate terms of manufacture I assumed it was a company who had the plant to produce modules and the money available to invest in a viable product. They would probably also have a pre-existing distribution network. If they were only supplying modules built to AR’s specification I would use the term supplier instead. Maybe AR will turn to using the term “Sleeping Partner” just to confuse us even more.

“The partner has set Rossi a high bar — he needs to show to a level of 5 Sigma (99.9999 per cent probability) that his QuarkX reaction is not some kind of mistake or accident.”

Sorry Frank but let me be frank: you are repeating the same nonsense Rossi-skeptics write to make him look ridiculous. Of course -and Rossi has made that clear enough by now – it is NOT what you wrote above, which wouldn’t make no sense whatsoever (the COP is high enough that even the first prototype run long ago would have reached that goal) but the probability that the QuarkX runs out of control, producing a meltdown, or just going down. It is reasonable of Rossi’s partner to request a 5 sigma level of reliability, as we all know how much time Rossi spend in the 1MW container to keep everthing under control. A commercial device can’t be shipped with a Rossi clone manually operating it 18 hours a day.

Frank Acland

Thanks for your good point Timar. I am still not exactly sure what the 5 sigma is referring to, but you may be right

Dr. Mike

Frank,
Rossi can’t be measuring reliability by running just a few units- see Axil Axil and my comments down below.
Dr. Mike

Frank Acland

He says he is measuring millions of ‘events’ occurring in a single device. So maybe the QuarkX is being pulsed somehow and each pulse has the possibility of failure. I’m really not sure.

Ged

A high sampling rate will of course make millions of points of data, like MFMP’s experiments with their high sampling rates. Though, pulses on and off rapidly is very stressful for a device and a great way to test reliability and automation, so that makes sense and would fit.

artefact

Reminds me of Mills Sun Cell just in small 🙂

BillH

However, that would not be the normal mode of operation or use, and would give questionable results at best.

Ged

Destructive testing is purposefully pushing a product outside its normal operating mode or use. That is the point. Tests like this are standard procedure, not dubious at all, but necessary if you want to test reliability, failure rates, and failure modes.

BillH

A destructive test is almost always a substitute for long term testing and results in an unusable device. Consider these new LED light bulbs, these often have a MTBF quoted at 50,000 hrs, you can guaranteed no individual LED has run for that long so far. This is supposition and will only be confirmed by testing in the field.

Ged

Exactly :).

Timar

Of course he can – it all depends on the frame of reference – which has to be either a pulse or a unit of time. In thr latter case it has to be a relatively short unit of time to arrive at 5 sigma by testing only one are a few units fot a period of months.

TVulgaris

There are multiple meanings of reliability. One of them can be demonstrated with accelerated-life tests to estimate MTTF by varying pulse waveform, duty cycle, and period, and it can be performed using only a few units.

What value are they measuring to five sigma?
Do they have a high rate of units which do not work?

Ged

Sounds like that is what they are trying to find out.

http://lenrftw.net LENR G

Ostensibly, they are concerned with commercial introduction and all the complexities of engineering reliability.

While the rest of us continue to wait for definitive proof. Maddening.

The five sigma according to Rossi is not related to failure rate of units but rather some characteristic event associated with an individual unit. We are left to guess what that might be.

Ged

Where did you see it was not related to reliability/failure rates? I think I missed that one.

http://lenrftw.net LENR G

He said he had only produced hundreds of QX’s and is only testing 3 at a time.

Ged

Seems fine for failure mode testing, by that sound of it. Manufacturing is no simple game. Whatever form they decide on the entire line has to be tooled to do, and that is the really pricy part. If they have to change and retool, that would seriously hurt the bottom line. Making a large number of varients and testing them in batches seems a smart mode of doing the prototyping.

http://lenrftw.net LENR G

Problem is he’d have to test millions to reach five sigma if he’s just looking at works/doesn’t work kind of reliability. He said that’s not what’s happening, that he’s measuring millions of events on a single unit.

Andrea Rossi
October 22, 2016 at 11:33 AM
Sebastian:
No, it does not work that way: the probabilities are related to events, not to items.
Warm Regards,
A.R.

EDIT:
Gist of the question was:

Is it that out of 3.5 million QuarkX produced, only 1 will be expected to be defective?

http://lenrftw.net LENR G

My best guess is that they are looking for emissions (gamma, other), either to establish a safety baseline or to validate a theory or both.

The safety aspect seems most germane to imminent commercialization, so that’s where my gut is at the moment.

Another possibility is that they are testing the edge cases of their control algorithms, detecting whenever device parameters move out of their control envelope, so that they have a high level of confidence that shipped QX’s won’t burn out or worse.

Ged

Well, he is right though, it doesn’t actually work that way. “Defective” is ill posed; does it die within the expected life span, in the expected operating range, is it irrepairable, was it a failure of the manufacturing line before it rolled out the door? See, every item will fail eventually, and the sigma is about failure events, not failed items–when they occur and how. This is the basis from which a warranty or service agreement will be offered, too.

Talking in terms of manufacturing isn’t something more are accustomed to doing, but the link I posted twice in this thread provides a good discussion. This also has some interesting perspectives: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTBF

We’ll see though. Everything he has said and doing lately is parsamonious to manufacturing, but always possible he is misusing the terms. The talk about the current three quarks under test where the best one will move on to production strongly makes me think he is using it all right in reference to manufacturing. But again, we’ll see one way or the other.

Ophelia Rump

What is an “event”?

Is that starting a reaction?

Is it bringing a reaction down in from an upper threshold to a lower threshold to prove control?

The low temp e-cat is the 1 MW plant that he has made at least three containers of that we have directly seen in photo evidence (and many others in person),the latest one being IH’s 1 MW plant. More are supposedly being made.

The Hotcat evolved into the Quark after more development it seems, which is being actively pursued as the topic of this thread is about. Though, the old tubular got cat design appears to now be depreciated and wasn’t even used in the 1 MW plants, despite being developed before the most recent 1 MW low temp plant.

So, now you know.

Obvious

Ged, the red Plant is made with the 51 small modules from the old blue Plant, and the four roof units removed, modified and turned into the four Tigers, which were installed inside the longer red container.

Ged

Where did we hear this? The four tigers seem they would need quite different engineering, but if you have details to can post showing their construction, that would be awesome.

Hm, they look similar but still rather different–but great photo. I’ll have to grab all the images and compare. The original foiled top ones were much smaller looking, though all the foil “washroom sink” sized units were bigger than the ones we have seen since and smaller than the tigers. But, I am not in a place were I can do a comprehensive look over yet.

Thanks for the photos! Yeah, I was thinking of the foil units, but they do look like one long sub sandwich rather than like the individual washroom sink sub pieces that are inside. The outer casing of the tigers definitely looks recycled between the blue transport and the red planet with some small differences, and I believe you are right that the case has been reused from blue to red.

You can also see the yellow seal on the blue plant’s ones appear broken and oranged in the red plant’s tigers, so they were apparently opened up. No way to know if the insides of the case are the same or not with the current photos here, or what if anything was changed.

Jerry Soloman

Quark X can put an end to the – Pipeline Wars – the image below demonstrates
why the Russians are in Syria and the US supports the Saudi line – its all about CONTROL

sam

Bernie Koppenhofer
October 25, 2016 at 1:43 AM
Dr. Rossi: Who will be the judge on whether you have reached Sigma 5. Thanks again for answering our questions.

Andrea Rossi
October 25, 2016 at 7:00 AM
Bernie Koppenhofer:
I will be. And I will be a very serious one, since all my money will be invested in the industrialization.
Warm Regards,
A.R.

Look at Samsung for an example of what happens and the costs associated with a product that fails QA/QC after being let out the door and mass produced.

http://lenrftw.net LENR G

Why would Rossi need to sink all of his own money if he has an industrialization partner… and why would he be the sole arbiter of whether the sigma threshold was reached? This has me worried that the new ‘partner’ is Leonardo Corp.

Let’s get this show on the road and force Rossi’s hand because all he’s doing is stalling.

Ged

The partner, if a manufacturer, is not going to put their own money solely in. Typically, it is more like you are renting the manufacturer’s space and capabilities. Even if they are putting in some money, the cost may just be that high; but it could be they are doing the work but Rossi has to pay for it, which is the common way.

I very much hope any or all of those others you name step out!

Nixter

Just as production is ready,he will make another huge breakthrough, the COP and total output will be orders of magnitude higher with nearly 100% available as EMF energy, it will be the CharmZ reactor. All work and development on the QuarkX will have stop in order to focus on the more powerful CharmZ design, this will take several years to perfect before going into production, however just before full scale production begins, a new breakthrough is made,…..

I hope this time the QuarkX will see the light of day, these improved models are becoming a point of obstruction, repeatedly preventing actual production.

Ged

Work on the normal e-cat and its commercialization hasn’t stopped, so the basic premise of your post–that he will dump a final product in favor of an experimental new one–is falacious.

The 1 MW test was not abandoned as soon as the QuarkX came about, nor did the low temp e-cats (from which the 1 MW plant was built) stop being made as soon as hotcats were invented.

The exception you could make a statement on is the hotcats themselves, which were seemingly replaced by the Quark. However, they were not yet at product stage and the Quake seems to be an evolution of them, so it appears more of a prototype morphing into a better one rather than a product being cut to hide it and using a new invention as an excuse to do so.

sam

Ing. Michelangelo De Meo
October 25, 2016 at 4:41 AM
Dr. Rossi there is no time, we must hurry!

Andrea Rossi
October 25, 2016 at 6:54 AM
Ing. Michelangelo De Meo:
I know you are a Prof of an Italian engineering faculty, so you know that to “produce” a good engineer it takes at least 5 years. Imagine the time necessary to produce a so complex revolutionary product like ours.
We are taking not much more time that the time it needs to produce an engineer along a well known and consolidated procedure, a luxury we do not have. We have to cut our path through an unknown jungle.
Warm Regards,
A.R.

Axil Axil

An example of quality as applied to a LENR reactor.

Rossi has said that his QuarkX has a lifetime of 20 years. If a batch of 100 units were tested and one of the 100 only lasted 10 years then the total years of service for that batch would be calculated to be (100 units) (20 years) = 2000 years of maximum service. The sigma is calculated as 99 units met requirements and 1 unit met .5 or 1/2 of the required uptime.

How Rossi can figure the sigma with only one unit whose life time is 20 years is beyond me.

DrD

He’s not basing it on lifetime. He’s monitoring parameters of a small number of units. That much he’s stated.
I assume he is calculating their (the parameters e.g. temperature etc) individual capability against his traget specification(s).

Gerard McEk

He is testing it on safety, reproducibility, reliability and performance. I have no idea how you could test all these aspects for 5 sigma. Maybe in combination with thorough autopsie?

Axil Axil,
I agree that Rossi’s goal of achieving 5 sigma has nothing to do with reliability. In fact, it will take many years to evaluate the reliability of the QuarkX device, a task achieved only by running many devices for a very extended time period. Since the device is claimed to be operated at a temperature near the maximum operating temperature of the materials being used, it will not be possible to use the methods used in the semiconductor industry to establish the reliability of IC’s, that is accelerated life tests. It could easily take many years to verify the QuarkX is reliable, if it is really intended to have a long life (20 years or so).
I can’t really see where the 5 sigma is referring to just whether the QuarkX reaction is a mistake or accident as stated by Frank in his above post. If the output is 20W and the COP is “high”, it surely is not that hard to verify that only a couple of Watts are being input to the device? Perhaps Rossi is trying to verify that the energy density is too great to be a chemical reaction? Maybe one day we will know what Rossi means when he claims he is trying to achieve “5 sigma”.
Due to the uncertainty of establishing reliability on a device operated at a temperature close to the maximum operating temperature of the materials being used, I don’t see the QuarkX device becoming a commercial product at any time in the near future. However, it could easily be used as the basic device in another 1MW test plant, in an effort to begin to establish reliability.
Dr. Mike

Alain Samoun

I feel, probably like a lot of readers, that the ‘5 sigma’ is some sort of smoke screen because either the gizmo is not ready yet even for a demonstration, or because it will have no real impact on the energy market (COP close to 1). After so many months of hope, no wonder that a lot of us feel discouraged if not skeptical about Rossi

Lars Lindberg

5 sigma is when the probability is 1 in 3.5 million.
So if the Quark-X only fail ones in every 3.5 million test it has reached 5 sigma.

http://www.lenr-forum.com/forum/ barty

Yes, but according to Rossi he has only produced a few quark-X reactors.
So he’s far away from 3.5 million working quark-x reactors.

In my oppinion the “5 sigma” thing is just another eyecatcher to feed the naive crowd…

Ged

That is not how statistics works. It is always an estimate of a population. Does Ford make 3.5 million truck prototypes before selling one?

Moreover, you can get past a five sigma mark with just a sample size of 3 control and experimentals, depending on what you are measuring, how different the two means are, and how variable the data is. For reliability testing, it takes a lot of time and stressing, and can be estimated from a few prototypes put through the ringer compared to normal operation.